


Ring'd With the Azure World

by Vulgarweed



Series: Eyrie Tales [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Eagles Are Not Kindly Birds, Giant Eagle Incest, Het Bird Sex, Istari Angst, Maiar Slash, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:32:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed
Summary: As Olórin and Aiwendil, two of the Maiar who will become the Istari, travel from Valinor to Middle-earth via Giant Eagle Airlines over the Sundering Sea, they experience some in-flight turbulence. Eagles are not servants, and the minor inconvenience of passengers does nothing to deter them from their own necessities and pleasures.In love with one another and fearful of what lies ahead, the future Gandalf and Radagast don't mind using the detour for an interlude of their own.Written forlydiabennet/Teaselin the 2017 Fandom Trumps Hate Auction. Thank you so much for your generous donations toNatural Resources Defense CouncilandThe Nature Conservancy.Part 2 of the Eyrie Tales trilogy, stories centered on the giant eagles of Middle-earth.Huge thanks to my betasAnarfeaandTyellas!





	Ring'd With the Azure World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teasel (lydiabennet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiabennet/gifts).



_He clasps the crag with crooked hands;_  
_Close to the sun in lonely lands,_  
_Ring’d with the azure world, he stands._

_The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;_  
_He watches from his mountain walls,_  
_And like a thunderbolt he falls._ ("The Eagle," Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

 

  
_In time, all of the five Maiar who were to become the Istari made their way across the Sundering Seas to the lands of Middle-earth. Some went with delight in adventure, some with resignation, and some in sorrow and fear. And some went abroad as unclothed spirits, to assemble their new forms from their thought and the material of their new lands. And some came clad in their traditional shape, to wear their fair form for the last few days before veiling their beauty in the guise of aged, long-bearded Men. These were Olórin and Aiwendil, those two whose hearts turned ever towards each other. One was a vassal of Nienna and Lórien, and the other an aide of Yavanna who adored all her creations, and possibly most of all the birds who rode the breath of Manwë._

 

“Far, far below, are we nearly there?” asked one rider to his great winged steed who bore him far above the choppy waters of the Sundering Seas. For all the care that Ulmo Lord of Waters had for all his charges, the sea on this day bore a dark and brooding aspect of roiling foam, as though Ossë the Storm-Weaver had taken free rein upon this patch for-ever.

“Nearly to the Eastern Lands?” said one of the giant eagles who bore them. “Not yet. We are crossing over the site of the lost isle. The Meneltarma, hill of heaven.”

“Audaciously named. It was nothing to Taniquetil,” said the other eagle, the windlord Gwaihir, son of Thorondor. “There are higher peaks yet even in the Mortal-Lands.

“The Men of Númenor were never humble,” said Meneldor Gwaihir’s mate and half sister. “Even when they were still fair of heart and hearkened yet to the West, before the dark days of Tar-Mairon.”

“Tar-Mairon?” asked the quiet Maia upon her back, shyly.

“Oh pardon us,” Gwaihir said sarcastically. “I cannot keep track of all his pompous titles. ‘Annatar, Lord of Gifts’ was he in Númenor? Or did he save that for the doomed Elves of Eregion?”

“Oh,” said the Maia who rode Gwaihir. “Would that he had been content to remain Mairon, and wield his skill in the forges of Aulë for all time. Yet Aulë could not hold his love for long, and he fell to a rougher seduction.”

“Melkor was fair-spoken in the dawn of time,” said his companion. “He won many by guile who would not have fallen by cruelty.”

“Melkor was enamored above all of the sound of his own voice,” replied the other, who was known in his homeland and to his companion as Olórin, but soon would shed that name to take on many others.

“And Mairon was enamored likewise,” said his heart’s friend Aiwendil. “With the voice of Melkor, I mean, not his own. The Valië you serve might have you spare a moment’s compassion for one who fell to ruin by love.”

“Is it truly love then, if it brings only darkness and ruin?”

“True enough to count, as few can tell the difference before it is too late,” said Aiwendil, who spoke no more for a time.

The Maia who rode Meneldor was far more at ease with the great feathers beneath him and the great wings that spread out long and vast on either side, for he was an aide to Yavanna - by her command it was that he had been sent, and the name he was known by, Aiwendil, meant Lover of Birds.

Olórin had often wondered how literally to take that, for he was possibly too far at ease with his position on the giant eagle. Well, if she did not wish to suffer his company, she would not have done so for long. It is well to always remember one’s position when dealing with Eagles, for they are very large and powerful, and will bear no burden against their will.

Olórin made the mistake of peering down over Gwaihir’s golden shoulders - for to gaze upon the grey-green, ever-rocking domain of Ulmo was usually a joy, unless one was so high up. Already Olórin had begun to experiment with wearing forms of the general type he would have to wear once he walked among Men and Elves, and already he was learning that there were organs in the central area of his body that would swoop and burble in unsettling ways when Gwaihir rode an especially elaborately-shaped wind. He didn’t believe he was supposed to enjoy this.

He and his compatriots would be sharply limited in this new land - walking in guise of stooped and bearded old Men, powers at need only, and only able to advise and inspire, not to engage the Enemy directly. He who wreaked the most destruction now was not a mighty Vala as his lord and predecessor was - he was a Maia, of their own number, yet grown great in his corruption and cruelty.

Ahead and a little below, Arien’s light glinted on Aiwendil’s chestnut hair, giving it a warm red tinge, and Olórin felt again that chest-swell that he understood now to be the physical form of an emotion taking root in the body. He wished so dearly that this world they were about to enter, and this long task they were about to begin, would not be too cruel to his gentle friend.

Arien’s light was dimming by a grey veil of shimmering cloud as the sea roused to higher waves far below, and it seemed that Ulmo was allowing Ossë his tricks, his clashes of winds and water. Olórin thought it hard and cruel that Ossë was still allowed to take lives in his games, breaking up the ships of mariners, even when they had done no wrong remotely kin to the pride and shame of Númenor.

Yet so it was that even evil leant its notes to the music of the Ainur. Olórin suspected he would question this wisdom many times yet before the world was remade, particularly if his task was to observe the Music unfurling, to add his own notes as he had always done, and yet hindered from using his full power.

Long had he brooded upon this in his flight, when he realized he heard a soft murmuration near him, below and beside. Aiwendil was speaking softly, with a melodious voice that carried through the wind - and it was not to Olórin he spoke, but to the Eagle who carried him. The Eagle replied in a tongue unknown to him, more sweetly than he had imagined an Eagle’s voice capable. And yet he should not be so surprised, for the winds they ride are the breath of Eru Ilúvatar upon Eä, and Manwë would have chided him to hear his failure to see the wisdom of the great birds that were trusted with his most important errands. Including the current one, of bearing the agents of the Valar to the land where they were most needed.

With that thought in mind, Olórin silenced his own thoughts to listen to the voices of their steeds - the ancient messengers of Manwë who had seen more of these lands ahead and the seas below than Olórin ever would.

“Have you seen the Shadowy Seas from above before, travelers?” asked Gwaihir. “In the days of the Lamps, in the days of the Trees, only the valley allowed their light upon the waters. Now Arien shines upon all, and yet in some times of the year even her light does not reach the grinding ice. Many have died upon the Helcaraxë. We shall not fly over it. Our path takes us over lost Númenor, as you have noted. Eagle kind cares little for this place - do you know the tale of the mariner we do not name who arrow-shot our brother Mallentír from his ship? Cursed was he evermore after that, and rightly so - even until the temples of blasphemy and torment unalloyed in the name of Morgoth was his tongue forced to tell his tale again and again, he stoppeth one of three.” Gwaihir sounded satisfied by this, and Meneldor spun around again to cry out in anger at the memory, caring little for the comfort of her cargo.

“Even the noblest stock of Men can quickly turn to care little for things of the wild, Olórin. Your companion Aiwendil was a squire of Yavanna, and he knows this lesson well: you, I think, will learn it in time, for Nienna has schooled you in sorrows. Remember that the Children who have fëa and speech quickly come to think that their world is the world entire, and in that arrogant folly, they forget the beings who have society and spirits all their own and have little to do with the people of two legs and no wings. Yet they would do well to remember that the Valar have set watchers among other kindreds: as the Onodrim guard the forests and meadows, so we are the eyes in the air. I give you fair warning in case we find ourselves at odds.”

Olórin did understand that, but slightly did he chafe to think that Aiwendil understood the ways of this new world better than he in some regards. For all that they both were grieved and frightened to leave Aman and set foot upon the marred lands, long had Olórin thought of his companion as the younger spirit, an innocent in need of protection.

“His heart knows the ways of Yavanna’s world,” was all Gwaihir had to say then. Soon he would learn the many meanings that simple phrase contained.

Now far ahead Olórin thought he could see land on the curved horizon - the straight road now was bent to them, he realized with a sudden shock of horror. He could not abandon his mission and return to Valinor even if he wished - the seas now sundered them as surely as it did any other inhabitant of Middle-earth. The Eagles alone could make that journey, it seemed - for Manwë’s winds would bear them, and only those burdens they consented to carry.

Meneldor made a series of loud sharp cries, and Gwaihir answered her in kind. Olórin understood it little, but it appeared that Aiwendil did, for he held on more tightly and glanced over to Olórin with an expression of alarm. He burrowed down in the feathers of Meneldor’s back as though to offer less resistance to the wind.

“We approach the Grey Havens,” Aiwendil said. “The Western edge of the North of Middle-earth, the land of Arnor. The Elf-lord Círdan the Shipwright will receive us. Meneldor does not wish to pass near to the settlements of Men, but the Elves of the harbor still respect their kind although they have forgotten many of the courtesies of old.”

Gwaihir made a high-pitched peep of what sounded like assent - now Olórin fancied their speech was plainer to him now than it was when they had first spotted land. Perhaps closer to their destination, his sympathies for other creatures less like himself, and his ability and desire to understand their ways, were increasing. Or perhaps he was simply used to them now. Olórin wondered what Aiwendil had meant by _courtesies._

He did not need to wonder long. Gradually Olórin thought the Havens were coming into sight on the far distant curved horizon. His eyes, unaccustomed to long seafaring, were not trained to discern true land from the mirages of cloud and water, but he was certain he could see spires and walls of Elven design. Around him now whirled seabirds, shrieking white gulls and the wind-riding albatross that he would consider large were he not riding on the back of a true giant. Aiwendil’s eyes gleamed in delight to watch them, and Olórin felt his beloved’s joy come through him, and it became his own. 

Arien was setting behind them, casting her golden light across the water, and the shadows of the great birds skimmed the surface. They were definitely losing height now, and Olórin could feel the mighty muscles that controlled the wings tightening and preparing to bank eastward. They were so graceful even at this size - every contour and sinew of them perfect for its purpose, its flawless design. Even if their purpose would never be the same as his, they could fly together for a little while til their paths diverged.

And himself and his beloved would be different in Middle-earth - they would wear appearances aged and ragged, they would have their powers limited, and most painful of all, would often be parted for great stretches of time. Aiwendil still looked fair as a young tree, but soon he would make himself a form bent and shaggy, and Olórin would love him perhaps all the more. Aiwendil now wore the shape of the Eldar, chestnut-haired and green-eyed, yet he was less wedded to this form than some others of their kind, for he loved to try on the flesh of animals and birds and plants, and he loved to let the breezes carry him light and unclad among the trees. For his own part Olórin kept to one form more often, tall and fair and crowned in silver-white hair like Tilion’s light upon the leaves of Lórien. Vanity would be the least of the things he must surrender to do this work, he feared.

Soon, Olórin thought, they would be on land, and their true mission would begin at last. They would walk among Elves and Men and give such advice and succor as they could against the Enemy. Olórin suspected that Aiwendil had marching orders of his own in addition that he spoke not aloud, for Yavanna was nothing if not adamant in the defense of her charges.

Gwaihir gave a high sharp cry, and Meneldor returned it. Aiwendil seemed to understand it, for he yelped at Olórin and waved his hand in warning.

Gwaihir drew up his great wings and shot upward briefly, and Olórin felt his belly drop and twist with sudden great movement, tossed about at the giant bird’s whim.

He closed his eyes and held on as Gwaihir pitched and turned - and then was falling falling falling at breakneck speed, launching himself towards the water below with terrifying violence. His wings pitched and his great body yawed from side to side and rolled nearly upside down as he swooped headlong, faster and faster. Olórin didn’t mean to scream but a hint of one tore out of him before he remembered that, as a Maia, he could still survive the drop, the cry of his lungs for air was but habit - at least until he landed. Wind and water whirled around him and he opened his eyes to see the vast blurry shadow of Meneldor and her passenger speeding to the sea’s surface even faster, twisted nearly sideways.

Far too fast did she fall for Olórin to watch Aiwendil’s face, but it seemed to him that his companion did not mind the terrifying plunge as much as he did.

Meneldor’s talons spread and stretched as she approached the rippling waves, sharp and deadly and flexing in eagerness to catch and tear. She plowed the water into foam as Gwaihir caught up to her and they nearly collided. Olórin found himself almost pitched off Gwaihir’s back as the great bird balanced himself and reared up over Meneldor, who shot out from under him with an immense fish in her grasp and Aiwendil holding on helpless on her shoulders.

The fish was squirming and thrashing, but it had no hope as Meneldor clutched it. So close and so alert with fear, Olórin could almost feel Aiwendil’s compassion and sorrow - but there was nothing for it. Their steeds were not at their bidding, and they were creatures that made their living upon the flesh of others.

Nor were they always generous with one another. Olórin gasped and held on as Gwaihir seemed to head straight for Meneldor’s back with his claws outstretched. He seemed to forget all about her passenger until Olórin twisted his hands in Gwaihir’s great neck ruff of golden-brown feathers, and Gwaihir stopped just short of raking Meneldor’s back with his claws and likely slicing poor Aiwendil without a care.

The fish in Meneldor’s talons went limp at last, to the Maiar’s great relief, but now began the contest of the giants. Gwaihir swooped deep and skimmed the water to try to get underneath his sister-mate and steal her prize from below. They nearly all plunged to the surface as his wing struck hers at high speed. 

Meneldor would not risk her prize to avenge the blow, but Gwaihir came at her again, claws out, driving her towards the shore. This shoreline here was not the peaceful harbor city Olórin had looked forward to - this was a wild and dangerous place, limned with jagged stone. Olórin thought he saw the signature of Ossë in the gathering clouds, and centuries of his work on the sea-cliffs. Meneldor flew to a pointed peak with her limp fish, a great grey-blue creature with sharp fins a third as long as herself, her claws buried deep in its silvery flesh, blood dripping in a trail behind her. Gwaihir reached out and tore at it, taking a talon-full, and Meneldor snapped around in the air, beating at him with her wings, and Aiwendil gave a harsh shout as he lost his grip for a moment and slid down Meneldor’s back nearly to her tail.

“Gwaihir!” Olórin cried sharply, for the great Eagle had lost sight of his smaller charges in his hunger and the pleasure of the duel. “Have we our full powers still? Could he survive that fall?”

Gwaihir gave an indignant hiss and settled into a smoother soar, with his one sad clutch of torn fish-meat. He turned his head and fixed his great eye on Meneldor to see where she would at last perch to eat.

She chose a narrow promontory high over the cruelly churning sea. Indeed this was a favorite haunt of Ossë, for Olórin could perceive the time-distant grief and fear of many shipwrecks. She tore at the fish with her great beak, and Olórin saw the fierce delight of rending in her eye.

“Aiwendil, beware!” Olórin cried as he felt Gwaihir drop like lightning, attacking from above, determined to get more of the fish. Aiwendil would see his massive talons descending straight towards him - scaled and muscled, curved and deadly, opening and grasping - and close his eyes, reaching out with blind power to shield himself. Gwaihir hesitated at the surge of the Maia’s will, hovering in the air and ruffling hair and feathers beneath him with slow beats of his wings. 

“Please, windlord,” Aiwendil pleaded from his precarious place on Meneldor’s back. “Remember me, and crush me not in your wrath.”

“Wrath is it?” asked Meneldor with a piercing laugh. Rarely did she deign to speak. “He has no cause for wrath. He simply cannot control his hungers as well as he should. You would think he has not eaten for years.” She hopped a little, and spread her great wings over her kill. She was nearly half again as large as her mate, and he might posture and steal but he would not dare to attack her in earnest.

Olórin saw Aiwendil’s bright eyes go wide in amazement as Meneldor made conciliatory gestures. She exposed the tail of the fish, indicating that she would not fight Gwaihir if he wished a small portion.

And if eagles could wink, that was what she did with the great golden eye trained upon him. Aiwendil nearly slid off her back again as Meneldor shook her tail to her brother - once, twice, three times. And to look upon Aiwendil’s face, what he saw was not fear but amazed laughter. He held on as Meneldor stepped aside, allowing Gwaihir to eat some of her fish. Olórin felt his own insides rumbling at the smell of it, although he wouldn’t eat it raw - a reminder it was, that the body he would wear in this new land would have needs he could not ignore.

Gwaihir made undignified squeaking sounds as he devoured great chunks of fish-flesh, and Olórin felt a new affection for the mighty messenger of Manwë. Yet this was no pet, he who had helped to slay the dragons of Morgoth in the War of Wrath that drowned half a world. Let him and his sister-mate have their fish. Never would they deign to be less wild upon command.

And now it seemed Gwaihir had eaten his fill, and more interested was he in the motions that Meneldor made as she caught his eye and stretched herself nearly even with the ground, fluttering her wings and swishing her tail like a vast dancer’s fan. Olórin now panicked anew as there was another reason poor Aiwendil could be crushed between them.

“Up, up,” Olórin cried, stretching out his hand in the hope that Aiwendil could climb up on Gwaihir’s shoulder by his wing in the brief moments when first he mounted Meneldor.

“No, no, come down,” Aiwendil said. “You can see better down here!” He had a joyous grin with no thought of the danger. “Come down here with me, she can bear us both, and we can leap to the ground more easily if we must.”

Olórin gave a dubious gaze over Gwaihir’s shoulders, between the great wings beginning to flutter in excitement as Meneldor made her desires clear and her impatience obvious. “So we can both be crushed between them as they . . . Enjoy themselves?”

“We won’t be crushed,” Aiwendil says. “It’s really not such a long affair after all. I will shield you. Come down!”

Olórin looked wildly around, and found that was useless - he could only hope to guess his best chance by Gwaihir’s behavior. He hadn’t thought the moment would come so soon - he was amazed when Gwaihir darted his head from side to side - and then, quick as a flash, hopped up on his sister’s back.

Olórin took that moment to lean himself off Gwaihir’s shoulder, and fall as softly as he could to Meneldor’s back. She barely acknowledged him with the tiniest of grudging shivers. Aiwendil, for his part, reached out and took him into his arms, pulling him close.

“My beloved, I know not if the world we go to accepts this,” Olórin said softly.

“Hush,” said Aiwendil. 

Olórin obeyed. He lay still. He slid his arms around Aiwendil. So well did that well-loved form fit into his, so naturally, so long had they loved in the world of the west. The form in the shape of the Eldar breathed naturally against him, having worn flesh for so long it was well adapted in habit. Olórin clenched his hands in Aiwendil’s long silken hair - a rich earthen brown it was, with a russet tinge in the light like the fur of the fox or the tail of the hawk. Did he imagine a bit of bristle on the once-smooth skin of his jaw?

“Do you feel it?” Aiwendil asked, letting himself slightly merge into the feathers of Meneldor. “I do. Their desire is not like ours, my love. Can you feel it for what it is?”

“I wish I could feel desire in any form right now, but I am overrun with worries,” Olórin admitted.

“Manwë set you on this path,” said Aiwendil softly, “but you are bound to Nienna and Lórien. Sorrow and dream. You have kindness and mercy, and courage beyond your knowledge. But let me touch you with Yavanna’s love - if you must be bound in flesh, you deserve to know the joy of nature. Watch them. Touch me.”

Olórin rolled quickly to shield Aiwendil with his body as Gwaihir mounted Meneldor again, and the giant eagle’s great chest and wings blotted out the sun, pressing too close. Meneldor stretched out her wings as well, vast, overbalancing the edges of the cliffs and dark against the sunset waters. With pleasure she keened so loudly - once, twice, three times - bending forward and shaking her tail aside as her brother-mate pressed his loins to hers. Gwaihir’s great crop brushed Olórin’s back but did not squeeze them. His sigh of relief was interrupted by Aiwendil’s mouth on his, absorbing his breath and giving back.

Taste of tongue and touch of lips, scent in his nose of Aiwendil and the sea. Hands parting his robe just a bit, enough that his chest felt a breeze, hands, air compressed between the massive feathered bodies above them and beneath them.

“Look,” Aiwendil said, his hand tender upon Olórin’s jaw, guiding him to look between the obviously compelling sight of their own two bodies together, between the thickets of their tangled legs, to see the quick, sporadic mating of the two great eagles. “Who is to say their pleasure is less than ours?”

“Are they not closely related?” Olórin asked, a little disapproving.

“They are all the children of Thorondor, yes, to begin with, and this pair is ancient by Arda’s reckoning” Aiwendil said. “None after him were born of thought, as we were. They must use their flesh to make more flesh - as, I remind you, even our own kinswoman Melian has done by her own free choice. Yet even so, the Eagles hatched after are ensouled, do not ever doubt that. Many who walk on two legs believe that only they are in possession of fëa worth the name. They are wrong, Olórin, so wrong they compromise their own quality of spirit with that lie.”

“You are well-named, Bird-Lover,” Olórin said, running a finger down Aiwendil’s nose tenderly - for well did he love his leman’s passion in defense of his charges, the wild things.

“I am,” Aiwendil said. “Yavanna sees true and speaks plainly. And I love you, my grey-winged petrel, who will be called storm-crow before this land is at rest.”

“Mmmm, most gratifying,” said Olórin, accepting Aiwendil’s kiss as the clutch of the shivering eagles rocked them close together. “Will you love me still when I must wear wrinkled flesh and rags?”

“How dare you suggest I would not?” Aiwendil said, pushing him further down against the shaking and untrustworthy bed of feathers. “You will have to love me in my disguise too, my love, and I will go about dressed in the fruits of the wild and a layer of the soil. I will taste of insects and mushrooms and the emissions of birds and you will desire me still if I have anything to say about it.”

“You have everything to say about it, my own,” Olórin said, drawing them tight together, hands under robes to entice flesh that felt firm and young for perhaps the last time for many an age, caressing the spirit within.

“Fascinating,” Aiwendil muttered into the crook of Olórin’s neck as they rocked together and the huge body of Gwaihir shadowed them for the third and fourth time, blocking out the glimpse of Ossë’s building storm clouds.

“What?” Olórin said, his voice broken by pleasure, his thighs quivering with delicious tension. Long had he and Aiwendil known, after the fashion of the Maiar, that there were joys to be had that made the burden of making their own raiment of flesh worthwhile.

“Meneldor has not ceased eating her fish this whole time.”

“Gwaihir is not impressing her, then,” Olórin said, laughing against his lover’s chest. 

“Nor I,” Aiwendil said. “But you are magnificent, always.” He ended Olórin’s sweet suffering quickly with a few pulls of his mouth.

Olórin tried to muffle his shout in the sleeve of his robe, and then realized he might as well have not bothered, for neither Eagle gave the slightest heed, so he devoted himself with full zeal to coaxing climax from Aiwendil’s thought-spun flesh with his own deft hands. Aiwendil shivered and tensed and collapsed wetly upon him, dried and cooled by the beat of immense wings.

“If they’d done . . . The mating flight . . . That would have been more impressive,” he panted into Olórin’s hair. “But that could well have gone ill for us. They chase each other. They drop like lightning bolts from dazzling heights. They clasp talons and spiral together down down down until they separate or die at the last possible moment.” His eyes were ablaze and his voice thick with delight. “We would almost certainly be cast from their backs and into the sea. We’d never live to see our mission fulfilled. But what a way to end it.”

“I doubt Ulmo would let us die, should we fall into his realm,” Olórin said, rocking him slowly as Gwaihir took his last shivering beats against Meneldor, her tail twitching aside to grant him access, her body leaned down even with the rocky shore.

“It would inconvenience us,” Aiwendil said, chuckling. “These two would not interrupt their courting to come back to fetch us. Watch them, Olórin. Truly see.”

For a moment, Olórin tried to watch them with his eyes of flesh. And then, lost in the scent of his own beloved, he closed his eyes and saw with the sight within. He saw snapping beaks and golden yellow eyes, a shiver and a glance between them, a bond that held over thousands of miles and thousands of years, two great winged bodies vast and long, able to sense each other across countless leagues of sky, able to sense each other though a hundred mountain crags lay between them, able to recognize each other’s signature upon a distant wind.

At last, he saw. His closed eyes squeezed tighter shut, and a tear escaped each one, a touch of Nienna’s sorrow. Long would their flight be, and perhaps bitter their ending, for much of Middle-earth was dark to his vision, and even the wise cannot see all ends. He pressed Aiwendil even closer to him and kissed his soft brown hair. He felt Aiwendil’s fingers flexing in his own, drawing it up to shine silver in the reddish sunset. Already he felt himself fading to grey. He was ancient, and yet he did not know what it was to feel old. Soon he would learn.

And in time, when he was in desperate need and all hope seemed lost, in the long years to come, he would from time to time find that the aid he needed would come from the skies. Hope was the thing with great wings and feathers longer than a man, and hope obeyed no commands but flew for the love of flying and fought for the joy of it. Red in tooth and beak and claw was Yavanna’s world at times, and its champion now rested content in his arms for the moment. It would have to sustain them long.

**Author's Note:**

> Gwaihir and Meneldor are both canonical eagle names - both participated in the rescue of Frodo and Sam, and Gwaihir we know is also so ancient he and his brother Landroval (who plays a big role in one of the other stories in this triptych) helped rescue Beren and Lúthien thousands of years earlier. I took the liberty of making Meneldor female, because Tolkien always seems to forget that some beings have to be.
> 
> Mallentír is not canonical, I made use of [Hiswelókë's Sindarin Dictionary](https://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/online/english.html) to put together a plausible-sounding Eagle name. It means "golden gaze." If you thought I made a Coleridge joke in that paragraph, you were correct.


End file.
